God of happy coincidences

Elisha had a place to crash whenever he was in Shunem. A woman in that town had prevailed upon her husband to build an upper room in their house for the “holy man of God who is continually passing our way” (2 Kings 4:9). Elisha prayed for a child for this childless couple, and a son was born and grew, and fell ill and died, and Elisha raised him from the dead (2 Kings 4:11-37).

A few chapters later in Kings (8:1-6), at the royal residence, the king happens to be asking Elisha’s servant Gehazi, “Tell me all the great things that Elisha has done.” Just then, the woman, having been out of the country for seven years because of a famine in Israel, was arriving at the palace to petition the king for the return of her property:

“And while he was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life appealed to the king for her house and her land. And Gehazi said, ‘My lord, O king, here is the woman, and here is her son whom Elisha restored to life.’ And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed an official for her, saying, ‘Restore all that was hers, together with all the produce of the fields from the day that she left the land until now.’”

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There seems to be no point in this short vignette of six verses except to underline that God causes happy coincidences.

In another part of history, a man named Mordecai sitting at the royal gate happens to overhear two of the king’s eunuchs plotting to overthrow him (Esther 2:21-23). So he tells his cousin Queen Esther, and the plotters are executed. One night the king cannot sleep. He calls for the book of the chronicles of the kingdom to be read to him. The page falls open at the assassination attempt, and the king asks who the man was who exposed it, and the servant says it was a man named Mordecai (Esther 6:1-2). The upshot of the following events is the deliverance of Israel from a genocide plot.

I was just thinking that in matters of individual concern and matters of cosmic concern, our God is the God of coincidences, Lord of history. Let us trust Him with our lives.

Andrée Seu Peterson

Andrée is the author of three books: Won't Let You Go Unless You Bless Me, Normal Kingdom Business, and We Shall Have Spring Again.